YREKA – A jury is deliberating following the week-long trial of Richard Leslie Taylor, a 35-year-old registered sex offender accused of raping a woman in Yreka last year.

Taylor, a transient, is charged with felony counts of forcible rape, attempted forcible oral copulation, assault with intent to commit a felony and a misdemeanor count of battery. According to the charging document, he also faces special allegations for previous felony convictions including a rape conviction in Arizona in 1999 and a robbery conviction in Siskiyou County in 2004.

According to testimony during the trial in the Siskiyou County Superior Court, in June 2012 Taylor allegedly attempted to force the victim to perform oral copulation at a residence while his friend was in the same room. When she refused, he reportedly punched her several times in the face, covered her mouth and raped her. The witness in the room testified that he believed the act was concentual.

During closing arguments, Taylor’s defense attorney Ryan Mannix asserted that the victim and others who were coming and going from the house were in the throes of intravenous methamphetamine use when the victim accused his client of rape.

He referenced a video shown to the jury during the trial in which the emotional victim was filmed by law enforcement describing the circumstances of the incident.

“She either suffered a traumatic rape or she was coming down off of intravenous methamphetamine use ... is there another reasonable explanation for those emotional displays? I think there is,” said Mannix.

He maintained that during the trial, the victim’s testimony of the rape in terms of the positioning of her body “did not make sense.”

Siskiyou County Deputy District Attorney Martha Aker stated that Mannix’s closing argument could be likened to an octopus in the ocean that sprays a black substance to muck up the water and hide when predators are near.

“That is what is going on here,” she stated.

“What you have here is the defense trying to muck it up. It is not that complicated.”

Noting that the victim testified she was not under the influence of methamphetamine during the attack, “Let’s say somebody was high on methamphetamine. It does not matter; the rape still happened,” she said, adding that intoxication is not a license to rape.

Aker also told the jury that the alleged attack was remarkably similar to the one Taylor was convicted for in 1999.

“Who has the motive to lie? A defendant facing felony charges or the victim?” asked Aker.

Taylor is being held in the Siskiyou County Jail on $216,000 bail.

The Daily News will provide an update when the jury reaches a verdict.